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Chris Rowe, an unemployed Blackjewel coal miner, mans a blockade of the railroad tracks that lead to the mine where he once worked on August 24, 2019 in Cumberland, Kentucky. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

" 'If they can move this train, they can give us our money!' miner Shane Smith said.

That rag-tag group quickly grew to a full-fledged protest camp, complete with solar showers, a chore list, and a rotating schedule of miners to hold the place down. Community members brought food. Politicians stopped by to make speeches. Kids played cornhole on the tracks.

"In the one-minute ad entitled, '10 Hour Bus Ride,' a Pike County coal miner, Jimmy Moore, talks about a visit to see McConnell that took 10 hours and how the senator only spoke with miners for one minute.

" 'We were coal miners with black lung disease going to see our senator, Mitch McConnell, to try and save our disability benefits' Moore says in the ad. 'Ten hours on a bus, and we got to see him for all of one minute.'

"The ad is referencing a July trip miners with black lung disease took to see McConnell in Washington. They did it to convince legislators to help fund their medical care through reinstating a higher excise tax, Reuters reported.

"Moore says in the ad he's lost family members to black lung disease and, 'Mitch McConnell let the coal companies walk away from us and after one minute, he did too.'

"The Vermont senator and Democratic presidential candidate called the local Pizza Hut Friday and sent a pie to the miners for each day they’ve been blocking a train full of over $1 million in coal from their former employer, Blackjewel, according to the local NBC affiliate. The demonstration started on July 29 with five men standing on railroad tracks. Three weeks later, the blockade has ballooned into an encampment with what feels like a round-the-clock tailgate.

"The miners have plastered the words 'No pay, we stay' on banners and other surfaces across their camp in Harlan County, Kentucky. In early July, Blackjewel filed for bankruptcy and estimated it owes $4.5 million in backpay to hundreds of workers. The miners want to make sure the proceeds from the sale of the coal shipment goes toward paying them — not other Blackjewel creditors.

"State officials, like Republican Gov. Matt Bevin and Democratic Senate candidate Amy McGrath, have shown up at the camp to voice their support for the miners, but Sanders isn’t the only national politician to weigh in. On Aug. 5, President Donald Trump froze the shipment of coal using an Obama-era measure that his administration had previously derided and tried to strike down."